Just like its predecessor, Horizon Forbidden West is a perfectly decent open-world adventure game that excels when it comes to offering spectacle but suffers from a bland, predictable protagonist, and a world that, despite making a great first impression, lacks mystery and depth.
Aloy, the young outcast turned savior, is now looking for the backup of Gaia, an AI designed to control the terraforming process that is now destroying her machine-infested world. To that end, the now famous Nora hunter heads west, into Tenakth territory, tracking down her old mentor, Sylens, who has kept things from her and may know about Gaia’s location.
Now that she’s deemed a savior [...]
This review contains spoilers.
The Last of Us is a competent post-apocalyptic zombie game about a troubled, violent man making troubled, violent decisions. It may never quite manage to successfully integrate its gameplay systems into the story, which leans too heavily on the clichés of the genre, but still offers a carefully built nihilist narrative and a couple of memorable main characters.
The intro is beautifully constructed and – much like Ori and the Blind Forest – is the best part of the game even if it’s one of the most scripted moments of it. We meet Joel and his daughter Sarah on his birthday. She gives him a present, a wristwatch, but despite the special [...]
To better understand Immortals Fenyx Rising – the action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft about a Greek warrior named Fenyx, who is trying to stop a Titan from ruling the world – it’s important to compare it to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This is not because of their many superficial similarities – as it blatantly borrows many ideas, mechanics, and even the general art style from Nintendo’s behemoth – but because of their stark differences in structure. At a first glance, they may appear to be very much alike, but the core of both games couldn’t be more distinct.
Breath of the Wild is all about the exploration of a fully realized post-apocalyptic fantasy world. [...]
A Plague Tale: Innocence is a stealth-adventure game that greatly succeeds in setting up an intriguing story and building an engrossing, oppressive atmosphere: it’s a game that excels in mood and tension. Unfortunately, it’s also one that is bogged down by an increasing amount of silliness and an underwhelming ending.
Our young protagonist, Amicia de Rune, is the daughter of a French lord and lives with her family in a wealthy state in the 14th century. She’s introduced to us as a hunter, going out with her father and her dog, Lion, to look for game. Eventually, they come across a bizarre sight: a destroyed area of the forest, where a dark hole seems to hide some vicious [...]
“Time marches on and sooner or later you realize it is marching across your face.”
Lake is a game about a specific time in some people’s lives, usually when they are in their thirties or forties and suddenly realize that everything has passed in the blink of an eye. It was just yesterday that they were going to school, worried about grades and homework, and now they’re adults with bills and responsibilities. Their childhood friends are now married and with kids, living in another town. They were so busy working, studying, producing, and meeting deadlines that when they finally stop to take a breath, they realize that more than a decade has gone by. It’s a game about nostalgia [...]
Chorus is a competent space combat shooter that offers fast-paced action and a fascinating if underdeveloped story. The lack of mission variety can hold the experience back, but the game’s space dogfights are usually exhilarating enough to make up for it.
The protagonist is Nara, a former ace pilot of the Circle, a religious group that is wreaking havoc in the galaxy, trying to make people submit to their doctrines by force and killing those who refuse. She is a deserter in hiding, working as a simple scavenger for a man named Sav in the reclusive settlement of the Enclave.
Nara chose a job that wouldn’t let her forget her past deeds: while scavenging, she often comes [...]